The questions posed this week by Hive Naija are quite interesting. Especially the second but given that I have written something similar, I will now focus on the first. This experience I am about to detail was one of the most scary for me. Not just because I felt the light brush of death, but also because at that moment was when all doubts (if any) about the existence of miracles and the Living God were extinguished.
This happened in 2023. I was on my way to a pharmacy because I had a really bad cough and I needed to get it treated. I could have visited any pharmacy within the vicinity but they had the famous syrup with a pungent smell and horrible taste. It was also a potent sleeping drug and I needed to not be sleeping at work. So, that night, I boarded a bike to Complex. The syrup I was after tasted like vitamin C, effective, and of course, expensive. I did not mind though.
When I boarded the bike, I immediately had a bad feeling, like a premonition but I ignored it. As the bike guy rode, it became glaringly obvious that he was inexperienced on the motorcycle but we had almost gotten to our destination and so, I just decided to tough it out. In the midst of this happening, I got a ping for a job I was doing then and so, I briefly looked down at my phone. That was only three seconds. In three seconds, I heard the urgent cry of a horn right before impact and I found myself in a gutter very close to a construction site where stones and nails were very common.
It was like I was under water. Hearing muffled voices and the shouts of people. I remember being lifted from the gutter, my back aching like a motherfucker, and my vision blurred. Some people helped me to sit on the pavement close to the Mosque situated in that area, while they carried the bikeman to a chemist nearby because he was dealt quite the blow and bleeding from his head. I could hardly hear anything except the ringing in my ears. That was when someone shoved water in my hand to drink and poured some on my head. It was the heat season with whispers of rain, the water acted as a wakeup call right enough and the ringing in my ear stopped.
Two people came forward claiming they knew me and my mom, as my mom sold Akara (Bean Cakes) by the road side as of then. They volunteered to take me home, and a young guy who owned a tricycle offered to use it. He also said he knew my mom and he was a frequent customer. While in the tricycle, the two people who supported me at the back went on and on about how it was a miracle I was even alive and with minor injuries. The other vehicle had come out of the street with reckless abandon and zero brakes. From what they said, I and the bike man were flung away from the bike. The bike man collided with the wall and I went so high up in the air, they thought I was already dead before I hit the ground.
Frankly, it all happened so fast but I do remember the fear I felt. It engulfed my chest like poison and the thought I had in my head was just one, “I should have just taken that pungent syrup”. When I got home, limping and cold, my mom nearly had a heart attack when the people started narrating what they saw. Her face was as white as a blank sheet.
That experience left me in quite a bit of a daze. I was like that for a few weeks, refusing to use motorcycles as transport and opting for Tricycles. I overcame that fear soon enough but I never forgot that faithful night. I came out with just a limp and a few bruises on my back where I landed close to the construction, but the bike man was a different story. Miracles exist, and mine is a miracle.
